One morning, after our tortillas and beans, José stood, removed his straw
cowboy hat and looked out of the doorway of his earth-floor hut towards the
hills.
“I saw the haruca in the forest last night,” he said. I glanced across at his
wife, Maria, but she wasn’t smiling. She stayed near to the wood fire on the
hearth, rigid and silent. “Walking through the trees,” he added.
I’d never heard the word before, but I could tell it wasn’t good. “Who’s the
haruca?” I asked. As usual, he didn’t answer directly. Never give too much
away to the gringos, even the friendly ones. They will take it and never
bring it back. At last, he said: “It means there will soon be a death in the
village.”
During January this year, I lived and worked with an impoverished Lenca Indian
family, up in the highlands of western Honduras: José the father, Maria the
mother, and their five children, Evelina, Jaime, Benjamin, Alejandro and
Hector. Honduras is the poorest country in Latin America. I slept on their
floor under blankets. It was very cold. Honduras lies in the tropics, but
the Lenca village of Chiligatoro is 6,000ft up, amid pine forests of
spectacular beauty. Sometimes, the green fields and brown rolling hills
reminded me of Devon.
I got to Chiligatoro by Googling for “volunteer holidays” on the web, which
came up with a range of projects from orphanages in Ulan Bator to building
work in Honduras. I spoke a bit of holiday Spanish, and knew my Mongolian
would never be up to much. So building looked like my best bet.
“Building?” said my girlfriend. “You? You couldn’t even get that bookshelf to
stay up.” Honduras it was, then. I clearly had something to prove.
The bus from the capital, Tegucigalpa, up to the western highlands boasted a
psychedelic paint job, like all Latin American buses, and a girl’s name:
Esmerelda. Unfortunately, Esmerelda suffered a series of severe mechanical
embarrassments as she wheezed up the precipitous mountain roads, eventually
grinding to a complete halt some miles from La Esperanza, so we had to wait
to be rescued by the Little Virgin of Suyapa (another bus, not a miracle).
From La Esperanza up into the high valleys of the Lenca, we travelled
standing in an open cattle truck: a great way to travel for fresh air and a
360- degree view.
I quickly settled in with my gentle, smiling, soft-spoken family. For
breakfast, we ate tortillas and beans. For lunch, tortillas and beans. And
for supper — you’re ahead of me. On special occasions, I got an egg. I was
often hungry, often chilly, always physically exhausted by the evening. It
was one of the happiest months of my life.
The Lenca Indians live high in the mountains, as far from the ladinos as
possible. They grow maize, beans, a few potatoes. They have innumerable
beautiful, barefoot children, live in low-slung, thatched, whitewashed
cottages, and their climate is often cool, damp and misty. Spending time
with them gives you some idea of how rural life in Ireland might have been
before the famine: exuberant, communal, Catholic and deeply superstitious.
At dawn we’d trek up into the forest. Hummingbirds flashed in the bright air
and waterfalls tumbled down from the high hills. The deep, sun-burnished
bracken reminded me of Exmoor in October, or Golden Virginia tobacco. We’d
find a glade and start to cut down saplings with the one-and-only machete we
had between us. It often went missing. Hector, aged five, was “playing” with
it. José just laughed. Then we’d shoulder the saplings in tandem and carry
them back to the cottage, a gruelling 40 minutes. By now, the sun was
climbing straight up into the tropical sky and the mist was steaming off the
low valleys. We’d work until 12 and then stop.
At four we could start again. We split the saplings lengthways and nailed them
to uprights, then dug a trench deep in the rich, red earth, poured in
bucketfuls of water from the stream, and the bare-legged children gleefully
trampled it into a gloopy quagmire. Then we knelt and scooped up double
handfuls of the heavy, wet clay, and slapped them in between the split logs.
It was back- breaking work.
And then tortillas and beans, and nightfall. The fire would burn low, the
temperature fall dramatically. There was no glass in the windows, no
electricity or candlelight, nothing but the brilliant stars. Orion lay on
his side at these latitudes, but I’d be too tired to work out why. I’d pull
my blankets around me and slump to one side. It might only be 8 or 9pm in
the brightly lit cities of the world down below, but here it was time to
sleep. I’d be up at 5am tomorrow.
One day, I asked Evelina, 11, their only daughter, if she got a present for
Christmas.
She smiled shyly, looking down at her bare feet in the cold mud. She swung
from side to side at the waist, her hands behind her back.
“Well,” she said. “I wanted a new T-shirt, but we haven’t any money to buy
clothes. So mama bought us some Doritos.” A big grin, then: “They were
lovely!” To buy her children a bag of Doritos for Christmas, this is what
Maria must do: she has to go out into the fields and dig up some potatoes.
Then she will carry them on her bent back in a cacaxte, a wickerwork basket,
for half an hour up the steep winding path out of the valley to the red dirt
track. There she will wait, perhaps in the rain, for two, maybe three hours,
until she can catch a lift on a passing truck. The driver might charge you 3
lempira (9p) for the ride into town, but he will let Maria travel for free.
Half an hour standing in the back of the open cattle-truck, groaning up
hills and lurching through potholes, until they reach the little town of La
Esperanza.
There Maria will find a place on the pavement amid the other market traders,
and she will try to sell her potatoes. On a good day she might make as much
as 100 lempira (£3), but usually more like 40 or 50. Then she will be able
to go to the supermercado and buy a bag of Doritos for her five children for
Christmas. She will spend the rest on a bag of rice, some salt, perhaps some
tomatoes. Finally, she might go into the church and pray for the health of
her family, and put the last of her coins into the outstretched plaster hand
of the statue of the Little Virgin of Suyapa. And then the long, long
journey home again.
The children have heard of chocolate, and how delicious it is. Indeed, their
Mayan ancestors invented it. But nowadays it all goes abroad, to the rich
gringos. They have never tasted it. But still, Doritos — salted maize chips
made in Mexico — are a wonderful Christmas present in Chiligatoro.
They were the kindest, gentlest people I’ve ever met. Not once in that month
did I hear a voice raised in anger, and the thought of José or Maria
slapping their children was inconceivable. The day I left, looking proudly
over the new bodega that I’d helped to build, so sad to be going and so
longing for home, they smiled their gentle smiles and murmured, “Que te vaya
con Dios”. Hector clung to my leg and begged me to take him to England. He
knew there was chocolate there. I just laughed and turned away and
swallowed.
I wish I could have stayed in touch with them, but there’s no electricity, no
telephones, no postal service there. And if I did write a letter, they
couldn’t read it. Even the water in Chiligatoro only comes from the stream
off the hills, tasting of rocks and pines. So I say to them vayan con Dios.
And may the haruca not haunt their woods again.
Travel details: Christopher Hart worked for Save the Children
in Honduras through i-to-i (0800 011 1156, www.i-to-i.com), a UK-based
company that can set you up with volunteer work in 25 different countries
worldwide. There is currently plenty of work to be done in Southeast Asia,
at post- tsunami relief camps in Sri Lanka; or for something completely
different, you could look after poorly penguins in South Africa. Stints can
last from as little as one week to as long as you want. You pay for
administrative costs, for your board and lodging (absurdly cheap), and your
air fare. The return fare to Honduras, via Miami or Houston, is about £650.
Christopher Hart’s new historical novel, Attila (Orion £12.99; under the
pseudonym William Napier), is published on September 15. A novel about
Honduras is currently gestating
More volunteer adventures
POST-WAVE IN INDIA
The devastating tsunami of Boxing Day galvanised volunteers from across the
world, many of whom have done sterling work over the past eight months.
However, the aftereffects are still being felt in communities where not only
the infrastructure but also associated livelihoods have been devastated.
On the south coast of Tamil Nadu, India, the fishing industry was decimated;
apart from disrupted stocks and sagging sales, many fisher families are also
looking after orphans of their friends and colleagues. Teaching
& Projects Abroad (01903 708300) has a series of projects in the
area to build shelters and look after the children. Accommodation will be in
hostels or as a placement with local families. The cost is from £845 for one
month (longer trips available), including food and accommodation but not
flights.
BUILDING IN TANZANIA
Not all volunteer work is through project companies; in some cases, tour
operators try to “put something back” into their destinations. For example,
the overland company Guerba
(01373 858956) gives you a taster of one of its holidays, after which you
stay on to work in the area — rehousing Tanzanian street children and Aids
orphans at the Amani home.
At the moment, the children sleep 72 to a two-bedroom bungalow. Guerba has
bought a plot of land and is constructing a proper centre capable of housing
100 children in decent conditions. Volunteers travel on the Serengeti Trail
trip (six days), seeing Tanzania’s great game parks, then, at the end,
instead of returning to Nairobi, they travel the short distance to the town
of Moshi for an extra week of work. They stay at a clean but basic local
hotel.
Volunteers will work on the site of the new home in the mornings, and the
afternoon is free to visit either the existing, small, rented Amani home or
the local sights. The work on the site is nontechnical — digging trenches,
levelling land, maybe laying bricks, under the supervision of a professional
foreman.
The trip price is about £1,070. This includes the kitty and a £100
contribution to the Amani home; flights are extra. Departures are in
February to April next year.
CHASING WATERFALLS IN LESOTHO
BTCV (01302 572244) specialises
in environmental and conservation projects in the UK and abroad. It has 70
projects in 25 countries, from repairing dry-stone walls on Arran to coastal
conservation in Gambia or paddy-field repair in Japan. Its project in
landlocked Lesotho is to create a tourism attraction in this high (all above
4,000ft) and rugged country. Volunteers stay in Semonkong, a lively, dusty
little town where local Basotho traditions are alive and well. The work
involves repairing and rebuilding the crumbling path to the spectacular
Maletsunyane Falls, and surveying local flora and fauna to promote
biodiversity and ecotourism. Accommodation is in a simple lodge, with a
home-stay available. The trip departs February 18 next year, returning March
4, and costs £655; flights are extra.
LONG DROPS IN MADAGASCAR
Madagascar is the world’s fourth-largest island and home to an astonishing
variety of plants and animals. Global
Vision (0870 608 8898) supports a Pioneer Madagascar project working in
remote villages and forests.
Living conditions are spartan, sleeping under canvas with “long drop” toilets
and few creature comforts — a hot shower will become an object of fantasy.
But the rewards are an immersion into the local culture and working with a
unique community. Volunteers will learn a smattering of Malagasy and might
be helping to conserve threatened species, or digging wells and latrines to
improve local health. The minimum trip length is three weeks, which costs
£1,000; flights are extra.
WET AND DRY IN MALAYSIA
Coral Cay Conservation
(0870 750 0668) organises projects in Fiji, Honduras, the Philippines and
Malaysia. The last of these is a continuing survey of the Setiu Coastal
Wetland complex in Terengganu state, charged with developing “a sense of
community awareness and stewardship in the area”. The area is a complex and
beautiful ecosystem of coastal forest, mangrove, rivers and lagoons.
Accommodation is in single-sex dormitories and the work can involve trekking
and camping to survey remote areas. It sounds like hard work — it is hard
work — but judging from the volunteer diaries on the website, it is very
rewarding. There are departures every month to the site on Malaysia Airlines
(extra, as are taxis to and from base, £20 each way) and two weeks costs
£550, four weeks £950.
GOING SOFT IN UGANDA
This is a project supported by another regular tour operator, Dragoman
(01728 861133). The project owes its existence to a former employee who set
up Soft Power Education in 1998. Its aim is to help with the reconstruction
of primary schools in the Jinja area of Uganda. The emphasis is to create a
rich learning environment by improving school infrastructures and creating a
stimulating environment for learning. Volunteers help with simple building,
decorating and landscaping jobs, as well as working in and around the
schools. Accommodation is in a dormitory at the Nile River Explorer camp
site at Bujagali Falls. The price for 14 days is £260, which includes a
donation to Soft Power. Flights and kitty are extra.
FURTHER INFORMATION
A good one-stop shop is www.yearoutgroup.org,
a not-for-profit group that represents 35 vetted organisations, including
SWP, i-to-i, The Leap, Outreach International, Bunac, Greenforce and Raleigh
International. It also features a useful Q&A section. Also worth
checking out is WorldWide
Volunteering , which has projects with more than 1,000 organisations in
214 countries. It is free if you use it in public libraries, universities
and schools (otherwise it costs £10 for three searches in a year).
Rob Ryan
